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By Saesha Bhat ('24 Co-Editor-in-Chief) After nine seasons full of numerous achievements and records broken under former coach, Mr. Jeffrey Johnson, the Viking Girls Basketball Team started their 2023-2024 season with a brand new Head Coach, Mr. Ryan Murphy. No one fully understood how the team would play out with Murphy’s arrival, but with the season over after three long months, it is safe to say that the team has nothing to worry about in the future. After leaving his job of eight years, Mr. Murphy was looking for a new opportunity, and the Lady Vikings, who are one of the more accomplished teams in SBHS, posed as a great chance to achieve something amazing. He has been a teacher since 2015, now an English teacher at North Brunswick High School, and was constantly surrounded by sports his entire life, whether it was as a team player or as a coach. He spent some time coaching the Woodbridge Middle School Lady Warriors and the John F. Kennedy Girls Varsity Team before ultimately landing in South Brunswick, where he described he had an “outstanding” season. “Obviously our win-loss record wasn't as great as recent years, but the growth from the beginning of the season to the end was tremendous. We played a very difficult schedule and tested ourselves every day. We had a few crazy buzzer-beaters, an awesome Senior Night game, and nearly went to the Sectional Finals. This season was definitely successful,” he said. Apart from the numerous achievements Murphy was grateful for– defeating Colonia, defeating Monroe twice, and having two game-winning buzzer-beaters– he took note of the more intimate moments that made the team even more enjoyable such as the daily practices, the friendship between the teammates, the long bus rides, and of course, the pregame bagels. He also understood that even the losses, especially the one against Middlesex in the GMC quarterfinals, as frustrating as they are, are necessary to learn and move forward as a team. As for the future, Coach Murphy is determined to continue the Lady Viking’s legacy by encouraging more prospective players and advancing higher than this season could reach, possibly even earning them a photo on the wall. “For the program as a whole, a goal of mine is to establish a yearly summer camp for the younger players in South Brunswick, Kendall Park, and Monmouth Junction to build stronger connections with our youth programs. For the returning players, I really want to get back to the GMC Quarterfinals and avenge this year's loss. I'd like to get back to the Sectional Semifinals and advance to the Finals. We have so much talent in this school and so much support in the community, and I'd like to see us succeed at an even higher level,” he said. Team achievements were not the end of this wonderful season for many players had personal accomplishments that ended their high school careers on a high note. Senior and Co-Captain Meher Vig reached one of the most coveted achievements for a high school basketball player: 1,000 high school career points. She was bestowed this honor at the team’s second Monroe game where balloons, banners, and photographers crowded the room to celebrate her personal win. “Reaching 1,000 career points this season has been an incredible journey that started from the day I stepped on the basketball court. It’s a dream I’ve had since I was a little girl, and I’m extremely fortunate to have amazing teammates, coaches, and parents who’ve supported me to make this possible,” Vig said. Apart from this, Meher had other celebrated achievements such as first in all-time steals, second in all-time games, fourth in all-time points in girls’ basketball, being named to the GMC All-Red Division team, and being selected to the overall All-GMC team. Senior and Co-Captain Leilani Pinder also joins Vig with numerous personal achievements as she joined the 500 career rebounds club at the game against Woodbridge, finishing fifth in all-time rebounds. Some other personal achievements include first in all-time assists, second in all-time steals, being named to the GMC All-Red Division team, and a buzzer-beater that won them the game against Hopewell Valley. Recently, Pinder committed to William Paterson University to continue her basketball career and become an even more accomplished athlete who makes SBHS proud. With four seniors leaving the team this season– Saesha Bhat, Trisha Reddy, Leilani Pinder, Meher Vig– other younger star players are given a chance to follow in their footsteps. Junior Alexis Lease-Springer, who has been a varsity player since freshman year, can make her junior year one for the books. She ends the season with 754 points and averages nine points per game, allowing her the possibility of joining the 1,000 career points club in her senior year. She also was named Second Team All-Red Division. Although injured at the end of the 2022-2023 season, she made herself a promising team player this season through her killer defense and “clutch” threes. Lease-Springer said, ”I am feeling very thrilled going into my senior year of basketball because I will be back even better now from my injury that happened a year ago. I know what I will do or accomplish for next season and hope to achieve most of my goals. I am hoping to accomplish getting my 1000 [career points] and winning a state championship with my team or GMC finals too.” Although moving forward without major players on the team, there is no doubt that the Lady Vikings will be able to achieve just as great accolades. With a fresh coach dedicated to making the program better and a team with prospective star players, the team’s future looks very optimistic. Congratulations to the team’s exceptional 2023-2024 season!

by Manahil Zulfiqar ('26) Interested in Biology or Medicine and want to experience being a doctor? The Biomedical Futures Club has got that covered with their project, Case X which is a group project that allows students to become doctors and diagnose real-life patients. This project is a hands-on experience, where students form groups and work together from November to May, each year. Throughout those months, they get a new patient and work to diagnose them. On each video or graphic organizer that a group submits, the more points they get! BioMed board member & sophomore Harshitha Vijayshankar said that Case X is good for students who plan to pursue a career in medicine. Case X revolves around medical diagnoses and conditions and how a patient can get diagnosed. Students can also just learn how doctors work with their patients and how they figure out diagnoses for different patients. “It gives them the opportunity to view different diagnoses, as well as see how conditions can present differently in individuals depending on their age, gender, and/or other factors,” said Vijayshankar. Students don’t see or “meet” a patient in person. They see a patient in a unique way online. Vijayshankar said “Students see videos of real-life patients through a platform called OnlineMedEd. They get information on past medical history, symptoms, medication use, and other relevant data necessary to make an accurate diagnosis.” OnlineMedEd is a global medical education platform where medical students can watch videos and lectures to help with exams and medical education. With the amount of information and resources it has, OnlineMedEd is a great source for students participating in Case X. As students gather points throughout their work in Case X, they can also win additional points at the end of the year at Case X night and win the whole Case X. BioMed club advisor Mrs. Courtney Kestner said, “By the end of the year teams have rankings based on their score.  They put their knowledge to the test at Case X Night where they compete with other teams to diagnose patients based on the information they learned through the year.  The winners receive a grand prize.” Case X is also beneficial for students who genuinely want to become involved in the club and apply for a board position. “Case X is a great opportunity for BioMed members who may be interested in a leadership position because it shows that they are genuinely interested in learning more about biology and medicine. It shows commitment to our club values including teamwork, discipline and creativity,” said Mrs. Kestner. All in all, BioMed’s Case X is an innovative way for future medical students to get the experience of being a doctor and to get involved in the club more. “The best thing about Case X is getting to see future doctors in action,” said Mrs. Kestner.

By: Om Bhaskar (‘27) Socialism is usually characterized as an economic system where production, distribution, and exchange of goods are regulated by the government, and the means of production owned by workers and the community themselves. According to an article by the Reason Foundation about self-described “democratic socialist” Bernie Sanders,“Sen. Sanders notes that many in the U.S. claim they would be willing to pay ‘a little more in taxes’ to receive the benefits of universal healthcare, free education, and greater income transfers.” So, under more mainstream definitions of socialism, taxes would rise, and institutions such as healthcare and higher education would be made “free” or “more affordable.” More money would be transferred from the rich to the poor, and the government would expand. Some private corporations and properties would be nationalized and replaced by government programs. This ideal of socialism has made the ideology much more popular than it was in previous years, specifically among younger generations, like Millennials and Gen Z. The idea of an extensive welfare system excites many, however, the difference between a free market, capitalist economy with an extensive welfare system and actual socialism is a line that shouldn’t really be crossed. While a utopian idea of what socialism can be may sound good to many, history has taught the world that attempts at creating a society which runs under these systems end up causing government repression, human rights abuses, and famines mainly because when people give economic freedoms to the government, it is hard to keep political freedoms. The economy is also known to suffer under socialist systems. A recent example of this would be Venezuela, a country which democratically elected a socialist leader named Hugo Chavez several times and had a democratic system in place, but eventually lost its free democracy and ended up being ruled by a socialist dictator after the country’s economic stability collapsed. Nicolas Maduro, the current socialist president of Venezuela has been accused of human rights abuses and rigging elections, a modern, terrible show of the failure of socialism to protect the rights of citizens. Another explanation for younger people’s sympathies with socialism could be the fact that they just don’t understand what actual socialism entails. In an interview with social studies teacher Dr.Justin Negraval, he described two “definitions” of socialism in the modern day, one where “there is government confiscation (over the means of production)”, and the other definition, which is more characterized by expansion of government and welfare. “For example, the New Deal was one of the largest creation and expansion of government authority (In the United States)”. The New Deal was a response to the Great Depression which expanded government and welfare, while also keeping people employed. This, however, isn’t actual socialism. One last explanation for younger people being more socialist-friendly could also be because they simply are unaware of the terrors that have been caused by socialist regimes. For example, according to a survey done by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC), only 36% of Americans know that the Communist Party of China has killed more people than the Nazi party in Germany. Supporting this data, when freshman Balaram Srikant was asked which ideology he believed has killed the most people in recent history, he said, “probably the Nazis.” When told the correct answer to this question which many get wrong, and asked for his reaction to the true answer, Srikant said, “My reaction is surprised, I thought the Nazis killed more people because of the wide and known influence of the Holocaust and Hitler, unlike the actions done by the Chinese Communist Party.” All this goes to show how education of the tragedies that took place under socialism aren’t taught adequately in schools or in media, and how that creates a distorted view of history. Furthermore, the differences between capitalist countries with large social nets and socialist countries themselves has also not adequately been explained in media, and many self-proclaimed socialist politicians in the United States wrongfully call European Social Democracies, like Denmark or Norway, socialist, when in reality they are free-market economies. When asked if Scandinavian countries could be classified as socialist, Dr. Negraval said, “Generally, no. There are certain countries that have many more social programs”. This is a more “socialized” way of living to be sure, however, this isn’t actual socialism. Even the Prime Minister of Denmark said, “Denmark is not a socialist nation, it has a "market economy," in response to politicians like Bernie Sanders saying Scandinavian countries were socialist. This lack of widespread knowledge of socialism when compared to older times might be explained by the fall of the USA’s once biggest rival, the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was a socialist dictatorship which collapsed in 1991, and rivaled the United States as the only other world superpower of the time. The Soviets partly fell due to their economic system. When asked why the Soviet Union collapsed, Dr. Negraval said, “The economic system was part of it, but more was the corruption and mismanagement.” Average Americans were scared of the Soviet Union and socialism due to many different factors, one of which being the knowledge of how bad living standards were in socialist countries. Feelings like this were especially prevalent in the 1950’s during the Red Scare, which was a period of “hysteria over the perceived threat posed by Communists and Socialists in the U.S. during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States,” according to an article by History.com. The Soviet Union’s eventual collapse ended the largely prevalent phobia of communism and socialism in the United States, proven by the fact that older generations, which lived through the existence of the Soviet Union and most other socialist countries, have a much higher amount of fear and negative connotations of what socialism is when compared to younger people. Asked what comes to mind when thinking of socialism, Srikant said, “It’s basically when the power is shared between a group of people so it creates a more even society. The Soviet Union was a really good example of this.” When told about the deep political instability in the Soviet Union, Srikant said, “I think that’s logical, it has a very bad legacy and people often compare it with other terrible societies.” Furthermore, according to the same VOC survey, approximately 31% of Gen Z and 35% of Millenials believe capitalism should be slowly phased out in favor of socialism, while the number is only 18% in Baby Boomers and 16% in the Silent Generation. Millennials only began being born in 1981, the last decade of the Soviet Union’s existence, which proves the correlation between the Soviet Union’s existence training the reputation of socialism, and how the lack of said country left socialism to be looked at as more and more favorably. This let the idea that socialism is more even, and power is shared more equally gain more roots in the public, whether it be through popular media, frustration with some of the issues with capitalism, or just naivety to what they actually are, since the United States hasn’t really suffered from socialistic policies like other countries have. Furthermore, according to an article by The Heritage Foundation, after adopting socialistic policies in the United Kingdom, Israel, and India, all three countries “abandoned socialism and turned toward capitalism and the free market. The resulting prosperity in Israel, India, and the U.K. vindicated free marketers who had predicted that socialism would inevitably fail to deliver the goods.” India’s Gross Domestic Product before the reduction of expanded government and more socialist policies under a system known as “License Raj” was a measly $270 Billion Dollars. Once the economy was liberalized and these policies were abolished, the Indian GDP grew to over $3.3 Trillion in the span of 30 years, and the people of India are much better off as their GDP per capita grew from $304 to $2,389 per year. All of this information paints a dim picture of the policies that are to come in the USA’s future. If capitalism is continuously looked down upon while socialism is embraced by the younger generations, who will eventually take a majority of political power in the United States as other generations age, a transition to some form of socialism could become a legitimate idea if enough support was there among the branches of government and the people. The ramifications of that would be disastrous for the economy, and strain the already rapidly growing debt. If historical issues with socialism are ignored by politicians, the United States would just suffer the same fates as these countries, some of which do not even exist anymore. Time and time again, socialism has failed to lift countries up, and instead caused mass suffering and brutal famines. It is important to learn from history and to realize socialism needs to stay dead for years to come.

Opinion Articles here express the personal thoughts and ideas of staff writers at The Viking Vibe and do not intend to represent opinions of South Brunswick School District. Viking Vibe Staff Dec 11, 2021 3 min SBHS Offers Students Opportunities to Express Political Opinions 117 0 Post not marked as liked Viking Vibe Staff Dec 11, 2021 5 min OPINION: Mike Pence: The Anti-LGBTQ+ Champion 142 0 1 like. Post not marked as liked 1 Viking Vibe Staff Dec 10, 2021 4 min Students React: Lift on Consensual Gay Sex Ban in India 22 0 Post not marked as liked Viking Vibe Staff Jan 14, 2021 6 min A Psychological Breakdown of President Trump 175 0 3 likes. Post not marked as liked 3 Viking Vibe Staff Mar 31, 2020 6 min Opinion: The Fight for LGBTQ Education at the Board of Education 140 0 3 likes. Post not marked as liked 3 Viking Vibe Staff Mar 31, 2020 3 min Opinion: Why People Should Buy Newspaper Subscriptions 40 0 Post not marked as liked Viking Vibe Staff Jan 29, 2020 3 min Opinion: Why the Oscars Have Lost Their Prestige 144 0 3 likes. Post not marked as liked 3 Viking Vibe Staff Nov 13, 2019 2 min Killing Our Trees And Our Future 49 0 Post not marked as liked Viking Vibe Staff Nov 11, 2019 3 min The College Admissions Process: Does the Upper-Middle Class Have an Advantage? 519 0 Post not marked as liked 1 2 3 4

School News Enjoy reading articles about anything South Brunswick High School! Harivallabhi Ganapathy ('24) Feb 8 2 min FBLA: Paws For A Cause 119 1 3 likes. Post not marked as liked 3 Viking Vibe Staff Dec 14, 2023 4 min 1st Place Victory of SBVMB at the Ludwig-Musser Classic in Metlife Stadium 181 1 11 likes. Post not marked as liked 11 Viking Vibe Staff Dec 8, 2023 2 min SBHS’s Take on Banned Books 54 0 1 like. Post not marked as liked 1 Viking Vibe Staff Dec 1, 2023 2 min AmnesTea Event:EquiTea! 46 1 1 like. Post not marked as liked 1 Saesha Bhat ('24) Nov 30, 2023 4 min Journalism: A Secret Gem of SBHS 51 1 2 likes. Post not marked as liked 2 Viking Vibe Staff Nov 16, 2023 4 min Homecoming 2023: A Viking Victory 70 1 5 likes. Post not marked as liked 5 Harshini Dinesh (‘23) Jun 12, 2023 3 min Thank You Mr. Diggs! Wishing You The Best Retirement. 65 1 3 likes. Post not marked as liked 3 Viking Vibe Staff Jun 1, 2023 2 min Amnesty Club Holds Protest 56 0 1 like. Post not marked as liked 1 Lujan Asturias ('23) May 23, 2023 2 min The Heartful Schools 315 2 4 likes. Post not marked as liked 4 1 2 3 4 5

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